Computer systems and other resources are typically protected from inadvertent use and/or otherwise unauthorized access through the use of user names and passwords. The passwords are meant to be secret. Those entering the correct user name and password are allowed to access the protected computing resources, data, etc.
A user may be required to remember several different user names and/or passwords. For example, a user may have a company defined user name at work that is associated with a password of their choosing. The same user may have another user name and password for use with a home network, the Internet, an intranet, a World Wide Web (WWW) page, or the like. Keeping track of these different identifiers can be difficult.
Consequently, a recent trend calls for the inclusion of a user defined password reminder or hint that can be manually requested by the user whenever he/she cannot remember the password. Thus, for example, if the user's password is “Rover”, then the password reminder may be “The name of my first pet when I lived in Michigan”. Hence, the user could request this hint when trying to remember “Rover”.
One of the drawbacks to this type of password reminder is that the user needs to actively initiate the reminder. Another drawback is that the reminder information is usually displayed in a modal dialog format that retains the focus of the graphical user interface until acknowledged or otherwise explicitly shutdown. Thus, users typically need to ask for the hint and then acknowledge the hint. This tends to waste time and may frustrate certain users.
It would be advantageous to have improved methods and arrangements that automatically display reminder information at appropriate times, without requiring any additional user input or interfering with the user's ability to interact with the graphical user interface.